The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 02, 2007
Filed:
Aug. 19, 2003
Katsuki Hazama, Tokyo-to, JP;
Katsuki Hazama, Tokyo-to, JP;
Pegre Seminconductors LLC, Las Vegas, NV (US);
Abstract
A semiconductor device has multilevel memory cells, each cell storing at least three levels of data each. The multilevel memory cells are arranged so as to correspond to a physical address space, each cell storing 2levels of data each expressed by n (n≧2) number of bits (X, XXn). A logical address is converted into a physical address of the physical address space. A judgement is made as to whether a logical address space including the logical address matches the physical address space. When matched, the most significant bit Xis specified by performing a single comparison operation using a reference value. The specified bit is output from one of the cells corresponding to the physical address. If not matched, the bits (XXn) are specified by performing multiple comparison operations using different reference values.